Monster Party is a 2018 horror thriller film written and directed by Chris von Hoffmann. The film stars Sam Strike, Erin Moriarty, Kian Lawley, Robin Tunney and Julian McMahon.
Three young thieves plan a daring heist at a mansion dinner party. When their plan goes horribly wrong, the thieves realize the dinner guests are not as innocent as they seem, and their simple cash grab becomes a violent and desperate battle to survive.
Not a film adaptation of the 1989 video game.
Tropes:
- Attack the Injury: When Jeremy and Cameron attack Iris in the kitchen, she slices Jeremy's cheek open with a kitchen knife. When he grabs her arm, she jabs her fingers into the cut, forcing him to let go. Later, Milo goes a step further; digging his fingers into the cut and ripping off a chunk of Jeremy's cheek.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Although Casper gets covered in blood splatter and severely mussed up while escaping from the mansion, Alexis remains completely untouched in a red party dress with perfect hair and makeup until she takes an unplanned dip in the pool.
- Black Dude Dies First: Of the three thieves who stage the heist in the mansion, it is Dodge—the black one—who is the first to fall victim to the murderers, and demonstrate to the other two that they are in way over their heads.
- Blood Is Squicker in Water: Elliot is shot through the head and plunges into the swimming pool. There is a shot from the bottom of the pool of his body descending towards the camera, with the blood blossoming out behind him like a halo.
- Chainsaw Good: Patrick hands Cameron a chainsaw when they go hunting Casper and Alexis. Cameron's eyes light up with a manic glee as he revs the engine.
- Death by Falling Over: Ollie gets knocked backwards down a staircase and breaks his neck.
- Evil Mentor: Milo, the organizer of the dinner party as well the larger rehabilitation program for the Dawsons, where it can be inferred he’s involved in similar situations. While calling him “evil” may at first be a hasty designation when it appears his program is dedicated to making model citizens out of violent offenders, he’s extremely unscrupulous when it comes to enforcing his principles, threatening members of the family with physical harm when they skirt the line and even planning to hook potential witnesses on drugs to obfuscate their testimony against his charges (an only slightly better alternative to being murdered).
- Extremely Short Time Span: Two days, with most of action occurring in a few hours on the second day.
- Females Are More Innocent: None of the women at the former Serial Killer support group want to relapse into violence, while all but one of the men ultimately do.
- Fingore: Luther uses his cigar-cutter to cut off Flash's finger as a warning to Casper as what will happen if Flash's debts are not paid in full.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Iris smashes a bottle over Cameron's head when she escapes from him in the kitchen.
- Justified Criminal: Casper, Iris, and Dodge are all lower-class thieves who the film presents as having good reasons for stealing (Casper needs to pay off his father's debts to a violent Loan Shark and Iris and Dodge want to provide for their baby).
- Katanas Are Just Better: After he takes Elliot's katana from the trophy room, Casper (who has demonstrated no previous training in swordsmanship) is able to effortlessly cleave people's heads from their shoulders, or slice the top of their skulls.
- Lockdown: When the security system is triggered, steel shutters close over all the doors and widows in the mansion: locking Casper, Iris and Dodge inside the mansion with the murderers.
- Madwoman in the Attic: The Dawsons keep their physically deformed, mentally deficient and homicidal son Mickey locked up in their basement.
- Man Bites Man: Mickey uses his teeth to kill Iris by biting out her throat.
- Monster Clown: Mickey, the deformed Dawson locked in the basement, has an inexplicable clown theme, with pale skin, frizzled hair, and a typical handheld bugle horn. Most likely a throwback to the gimmicky Slashers of the 80s.
- Not Quite Dead: Elliot takes a bullet the through the head and plunges into the swimming pool. However, just when everything seems to be over, he emerges from the water in a berserker rage only to be stabbed by Alexis.
- Offing the Offspring: During the blood-soaked finale, Roxanne Dawson shoots her son Elliot in the head in an attempt to prevent him from murdering Casper and Alexis, and shoves his body into the swimming pool. Elliot turns out to be Not Quite Dead and emerges from the water only to be finished off by his sister Alexis.
- Pregnant Badass: Iris is two months pregnant, but does a good job of grappling with and escaping from most of the homicidal party guests.
- Retired Monster: The entire Dawson family is a lineage of serial killers who have attempted to stay “clean” under Milo’s tutelage. However, most jump at the first chance to get back into the blood-shedding business as soon as the opportunity arises.
- Riddle for the Ages: Just who is Milo? How and why did he creative this initiative to rehabilitate serial killers, and in what capacity is he operating? Is he government-sanctioned, or merely extremely rich?
- Staircase Tumble: Ollie suffers Death by Falling Over when he gets knocked backwards down a flight of stairs and breaks his neck.
- Suicidal Sadistic Choice: When Elliot captures Casper and Alexis, he ties them up in chairs suspended over the swimming pool. Each of them has a knife taped to their hand which will allow them to cut the rope holding the other's chair: causing them to fall into the pool and drown. Elliot sets up a timer and tells them they have one minute for one of them to slice the other's rope or he will kill both of them.
- Tropaholics Anonymous: Milo’s rehab for murders and violent criminals is run similarly to an AAA meeting, the implication being that violence and sadism is just as addictive to the group’s members as cocaine or booze would be to the average person. Milo makes it clear that the alternative for the Dawsons would be death or prison.
- White Gal on Black Guy Drama: A crowd of people pester the African-American Dodge about how he is in a relationship with the white Iris.
